Month: June 2015

Audi is taking off for the moon – together with the Part-Time Scientists. Nearly 45 years after NASA’s Apollo 17 completed the last manned mission to the moon, the cooperating partners have selected the old landing site of Apollo 17 as the new target. The group of German engineers in the Part-Time Scientists team is working within the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition to transport an unmanned rover onto the moon. Audi is supporting the Part-Time Scientists with its know-how in several fields of technology – from quattro all-wheel drive and lightweight construction to electric mobility and piloted driving.

“The concept of a privately financed mission to the moon is fascinating,” says Luca de Meo, Audi Board Member for Sales and Marketing. “And innovative ideas need supporters that promote them. We want to send a signal with our involvement with the Part‑Time Scientists and also motivate other partners to contribute their know‑how.” Luca de Meo is presenting the partnership today at the international innovation forum Cannes Innovation Days.

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Audi Board Member for Technical Development: “We are pleased to support the project with our know‑how in lightweight technology, electronics and robotics.”

The US$30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE is a competition to challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low‑cost methods of robotic space exploration. To win the Google Lunar XPRIZE, a privately funded team must successfully place a robot on the moon’s surface that explores at least 500 meters and transmits high‑definition video and images back to Earth.

AUDI AG is incorporating its technological know‑how into optimization of the rover of the Part‑Time Scientists, the only German team competing for the Google Lunar XPRIZE. The research group’s lunar vehicle has already been recognized during the course of the competition by a jury of aerospace experts with two Milestone Prizes.

As a cooperating partner, Audi is primarily supporting the team with its expertise in lightweight construction and e‑mobility, with quattro permanent all‑wheel drive and with piloted driving. Audi is also providing wide‑ranging assistance in testing, trials and quality assurance. In addition, the Audi Concept Design Studio in Munich is revising the rover, which will be named the “Audi lunar quattro,” to ensure ideal lightweight construction conditions.

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The Audi drivers will have to tackle their ‘home round’ at the Norisring next weekend with plenty of additional weight on board of their Audi RS 5 DTM cars due to their successes in the first races of the 2015 season. Still, leader of the standings Jamie Green and runner-up Mattias Ekström are looking forward to the DTM’s only city street race.

“I think our colleagues (of Mercedes-Benz) from Stuttgart will be a hard nut to crack,” Ekström said on Wednesday at an Audi telephone press conference. “They’ve got a car that fits the track well. And they know exactly how they have to set it up there. But if we get our RS 5 DTM to fit to a T, then we’ll put them under pressure. They’re not going to beat us by hitting just half the bull’s eye.”

Ekström’s brand colleague Jamie Green, who has won three of the four DTM races in the 2015 season so far, has a similar view of the situation. “I’m not sure yet what’s going to be possible this weekend,” says the Briton. “With the high additional weights, the Norisring will be a great challenge for us. But we’re not admitting defeat beforehand in any way. The Audi RS 5 DTM just perfectly fits my natural driving style this year.”

Green and Ekström are great fans of the Nuremberg city street circuit. “Mistakes are no longer punished on most race tracks today,” says Green. “The Norisring has only four corners, but across the race distance they do amount to a large number of turns in which you have to drive closely past the walls – and they don’t forgive any mistake.” Ekström: “On the Norisring, you can’t drive like you would in a parking lot or on the Playstation. The Norisring is one of the classic tracks that I find a lot more interesting than the modern ones.”

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The ‘home round’ for the four rings at the Norisring is linked with an aim that will only be achievable with a ‘heavy’ effort. In Nuremberg – only some 90 kilometers away from the headquarters in Ingolstadt – the Audi squad is set on continuing its winning streak in the DTM and clinching its seventh consecutive triumph on June 27 and 28.

Audi has not been beaten in the internationally popular touring car racing series in nine months. The two Audi drivers Mattias Ekström (S) and Jamie Green (GB) have each won three of the last six DTM races for Audi. Now there is an event on the calendar that suits both of them particularly well: the Norisring. The leader of the drivers’ standings, Jamie Green, has already celebrated four victories in Nuremberg and finished as the runner-up last year. Mattias Ekström has frequently been on podium at the Norisring and in 2013 crossed the finish line in his Red Bull Audi RS 5 DTM in first place, but was retroactively taken out of the classification.

“I’ve had some unfinished business in Nuremberg ever since,” says the two-time DTM Champion, who did tests with the Audi RS 5 DTM at the Lausitzring last week. “There’s no doubt about it: I’d finally like to win at the Norisring. It’s cool that this year we even have two opportunities and that the many Audi fans are already treated to a DTM race on Saturday – plus another one on Sunday. With the retro livery of my Red Bull Audi RS 5 DTM, victory can be the only aim anyhow.” On the occasion of the victory clinched in Audi’s debut at the Norisring 25 years ago, Ekström will be racing in the colors of the 1990 Audi V8 quattro in Nuremberg.

Jamie Green can hardly wait to be sitting at the wheel of his Hoffmann Group Audi RS 5 DTM and defending his lead of the standings as well. “With three victories in the first four races, I managed a dream start to the season,” says the Briton. “Now, the Norisring, one of my favorite tracks that I’ve always been able to handle particularly well, is coming up. Obviously, it’s not going to be easy for us because we have to start with a lot of additional weight. But the RS 5 DTM fits my driving style so perfectly this year that we should be in contention for victory in spite of this.”

Due to the success in the first four races of the current season the eight Audi RS 5 DTM cars will have additional weight on board at the Norisring, as required by the regulations. As a result, Audi will have the heaviest cars in the field. The race cars of Mike Rockenfeller and Edoardo Mortara, each tipping the scales at 1,140 kilograms – 35 kilograms more than the lightest cars of the competition – will have the highest weight.

“Of course, having to start with so much additional weight in our home race at the Norisring of all places hurts us, but that’s the way the regulations in the DTM are,” says Dieter Gass, Head of DTM at Audi Sport. “We won’t be the favorites at the Norisring to be sure. We’re going to leave no stone unturned to deliver a tremendous show to the traditionally large crowd of Audi fans in Nuremberg.”

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Audi will be featured at Kieler Woche from June 20 to 28. This year marks the brand’s sixth commitment as a premium partner of the world’s biggest sailing regatta. The company’s involvement is extremely varied. It extends from the Audi ultra Cup to live TV and from a trailer service through to a shuttle service and the traditional support of the German national sailing team.

Making sailing experienceable for the fans on shore – this is Audi’s motto in Kiel. The ‘Audi and SAP Sailing Arena’ at the Olympic Marina Schilksee with a stage for interviews and victory ceremonies will be the primary hub for visitors. At the local Audi Lounge, the Audi prologue Avant concept will be showcased and on Friday, June 26, the Audi Sailing Talk will take place there. Dr. Andreas Lochbrunner, President of the German Sailors Association, and Malte Kamrath from Audi Sailing Team Germany will be guests. Audi also supports the ‘Kieler Woche.TV’ channel that brings the sailing action to the fans with presentations, state-of-the-art camera technology and GPS tracking.

In the Audi ultra Cup, the brand’s own regatta at Kieler Förde, Audi goes sailing. This time, Audi Sport legend Marco Werner, athletes Maria Höfl-Riesch, Magdalena Neuner, Elisabeth Seitz, Björn Otto, Carlos Nevado and Tobias Angerer, TV hosts Mirja du Mont and Oliver Pocher, as well as Patrick Köppchen and Benedikt Kohl from ERC Ingolstadt, will be on board. They all are going to compete in a race on identically constructed B/one boats – just like the participants of the Audi Sailing Experience in which guests of Audi, together with pros, will be racing on board of the seven-meter boats.

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Audi Tradition lines up on the grid at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in southern England with two and four wheels: Nick Mason, the Pink Floyd drummer, is driving an Auto Union Type D twin-supercharger. Ralf Waldmann, former motorcycle world championship runner-up is riding an NSU Sportmax from 1955. An NSU Bullus from 1931 will also be in Goodwood. Around 200,000 spectators are expected at the Festival of Speed between June 26 and 28 – the annual highlight for classic motor-racing fans.

Firm favorite with the public Nick Mason is celebrating his ninth outing behind the wheel in Goodwood for Audi Tradition. “Every time it’s something really special again to have the privilege of driving such a car,” says the Pink Floyd drummer and car enthusiast. The Auto Union Type D twin-supercharger was the last development stage of the Auto Union Silver Arrow before the Second World War. In 1939, the 485-hp twelve-cylinder racing car won the French and Yugoslavian Grand Prix.

Audi Tradition is also lining up on the grid with two very special motorcycles and an outstanding racer: Ralf Waldmann won over 20 Grand Prix throughout his career and was two-time motorcycle world championship runner-up. Waldmann will be riding an NSU Sportmax from 1955 in Goodwood. The 250 cc motorcycle was designed for private racers after the Audi predecessor brand NSU had wound up its works team in 1954 while still reigning world champion. Hermann Paul Müller – Silver Arrow driver for Auto Union in the 1930s – won the motorcycle world championship on a Sportmax as a private racer in 1955.

Audi Tradition’s second motorcycle at the Festival of Speed is the very rare NSU SS 500 Supersport, also known as the NSU Bullus. The motorcycle earned its nickname after the top English racer Tom Bullus who won the German Grand Prix for NSU on the Nürburgring in 1930.